Jump to Comments As a person with a somewhat mixed relationship with my own birthplace (the only time England felt like home was when my kids were small, probably because anywhere would have been home with them around; I grew up wishing not to be English, checking out every new country I visited for potential resettlement qualities), I was especially pleased with de Botton’s account in this book of Gustave Flaubert’s despisal of his birthplace, Rouen. He fantasised about the Orient, and did visit Egypt after hi